Bill Weinberg's blog

Despite Saudi Arabia's penchant for beheading hashish smugglers, the stuff just keeps coming in. The latest big haul was reported in early September, when a Border Guard naval patrol seized 258 kilograms of hash at Jeddah, the country's principal Red Sea port. A vessel with three Yemeni nationals on board was also seized in the maritime operation—in what is now a familiar story. The flow of hashish entering from Saudi Arabia's war-torn southern neighbor has been increasing as the conflict in Yemen has escalated—whether it is coming up the Red Sea coast or over the rugged land border of harsh desert and mountains.

Is it really possible that Philippine President Rodirgo Duterte—who has unleashed a "war on drugs" that has now reached the point of mass murder, and used charges of narco-corruption to lock up his political opponents—is himself mixed up in the drug trade? With the Philippine Senate now launching multiple investigations into the drug-related violence, charges of involvement in the narco trade have actually reached some of Duterte's closest family members.

It's an ominous sign that even as California is on a countdown to cannabis legalization, to take effect in January, big pot raids continue in the Emerald Triangle. The most recent to make local news came on Aug. 22, when the Humboldt County Sheriff's Office Drug Enforcement Unit launched a three-day operation in the Conklin Creek area of Petrolia.

After last weekend's horrorshow in Charlottesville, it's a relief that the white supremacist hate-fest planned for Boston on Aug. 19 (sickeningly billed as a "Free Speech" rally) was a total bust. Just some 40-odd "alt-right" protesters gathered on the historic Boston Common, dwarfed by about 40,000 counter-protesters, who chanted "wrong side of history" and "shame, shame." Eventually, police escorted the small group of haters with their Nazi regalia away to safety, and that was that.

Police in the Philippines killed 32 people in a wave of anti-drug operations north of the capital, Manila—making Aug. 16 the single deadliest day so far of President Rodrigo Duterte's ultra-deadly war on drugs. Over 100 were also arrested in the sweeps—overwhelmingly street-level dealers—and dozens of firearms reportedly seized. The operations were jointly carried out by National Police and Bulacan provincial authorities. Duterte expressed open enthusiasm for the bloodshed—and warned that it is just beginning. "There were 32 killed in Bulacan in a massive raid, that's good," he said in a speech. "Let's kill another 32 every day. Maybe we can reduce what ails this country."

Pollution from outlaw cannabis grows deep in California's national forests is far worse than previously thought, and has turned thousands of acres into virtual toxic waste dumps. That's the sobering assessment of an Aug. 6 Reuters report on the mounting ecological impacts of outdoor cultivation in the Golden State, which accounts for upwards of 90% of illegal marijuana production nationwide.

The Philippines' ultra-hardline President Rodrigo Duterte met in Manila on Aug. 8 with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and came away gloating that the new administration in Washington is unconcerned with his blood-drenched "war on drugs," that has left perhaps 8,000 dead since he took office just over a year ago.